


living in memory

by TolkienGirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Romantic Tension, in which Lucy can't bear how her world looks and calls someone who understands, post-1x02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 04:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8273512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Late at night, Lucy calls Wyatt. After all, he understands.





	

Lucy doesn’t know what to make of the party. People laughed and toasted and the man she doesn’t know kissed her and told her that she was his one true love.

She still hasn’t learned his name.

She doesn’t know enough, and she knows too much. She is the sole keeper of history erased, of how it should have happened, of Amy. Always Amy.

 

Is it fair, to wish it all back? Mom with bright eyes, without the grey cast of sickness on her skin.

Even though Mom is angry—angry for something Lucy doesn’t yet know, either—Mom isn’t dying.

Is it fair to want to exchange that, because Amy never lived?

 

Her modern, high-thread-count sheets—nothing like the rundown inn of 1865—still feel scratchy against her skin. It isn’t fair. None of this is fair.

She wants to give and take from time, as though time ever lets anyone do such a thing.

These are the pieces she put together, pieces that moved in 1937, fire falling from the sky and down to the same earth. It kept turning.

It’s unbearable, to be alone and knowing. She rolls over, untangles herself from her sheets, and reaches for her phone.

 

He answers. It’s after midnight, but he answers. His voice is groggy with sleep.

“Wyatt?” It seems foolish to explain how she got his number—it was in the information packet—and now it also seems foolish that she called him at all.

The soldier in him snaps to. “Lucy?” She hears rustling on the other end—he’s already getting dressed. “They calling us in?”

“Uh, no. No.” Now she feels—terribly embarrassed, really. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—I just, I needed someone to talk to.”

There is the briefest of pauses. When he speaks again, she can picture the amused smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Oh. So. Nothing universe-shifting.”

For some reason, she finds herself wondering if he sleeps with his shirt off. This is not relevant. She clears her throat. “Nope. I guess I panicked a bit. Reflecting on how everything’s changed.”

“Your sister.” His voice is warm with understanding. It’s funny how they’ve bonded, the three of them, really, her and Wyatt and Rufus. They’re the only ones who remember—the only ones who will ever remember. There’s something haunting, eternal about that.

“Yeah. I miss her. And I just—I don’t know what to do. How I’m ever going to fix this.”

“The first thing you should do is get some sleep.”

“Sleep is overrated,” Lucy murmurs.

“It’s clear you think so.” The smirk is creeping back into his voice again.

“I’m _sorry_ , OK?”

“Nah, it’s fine. I like to be on speed-dial for a lady in need.” All the same, he’s smothering a yawn.

“I’m not a lady in need.”

“Hmm.”

“I guess this is just—time-travel hangover, right?” She tries to make light of it. She could learn a thing or two from Wyatt in that department—he’s good at making light of things, except for those flashes of seriousness and darkness in his eyes, when things are getting desperate. Maybe that’s why she called him.

“Something like that.” He sighs. Once again, Lucy is kind of…bowled over by her own actions. She doesn’t call people in the middle of the night. Especially not ex-soldier, fellow-time-travelers who are sometimes slightly flirtatious. Yet here they are. In the moment. In the moment. It’s now a thought forever tinged with irony.

“I feel better. Just needed some perspective.” The light is on by her bedside, but the room feels ghostly, and not quite hers.

“Glad to be of service, ma’am.”

She rolls her eyes. “I thought we talked about that.”

“Really? Must’ve gotten changed in the timeline.” He sounds perfectly innocent.

Lucy smiles against the phone. “Goodnight, Wyatt.”

 

It’s like walking on eggshells around Mom the next morning. Lucy thinks she should focus on the party, try to make small talk. But she didn’t know half the people there, particularly the one that mattered. She has no idea what to say.

She pokes at her waffles and thinks, _Amy would know what to say_.

When her phone rings with a new mission, it’s almost a mercy.


End file.
